Heart O' Glass
Location: Renton, Washington Date: August 13, 1991 Story On August 13th, 1991, Leah Eades was outside on a picnic blanket with her grandchildren Kendra and Jared while babysitting. Her husband Stuart was asleep on the lawn chair. Kendra asked if she could go in and get a graham cracker. Leah said yes and to come right back out. So she ran to the house, opened the storm door, ran to the kitchen, and got one. She ran back out, but when she tried to reach for the knob on the door, she ran through the glass instead. Leah and Stuart spring into action. Stuart didn't see anything on the spot, so he picked her up, rushed her into the kitchen and set her on the counter. She stiffed up and that's when they saw the blood coming out of her chest. Leah called 911 while Stuart tried to help Kendra with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while holding his hand on the wound, but it wasn't working. Dispatcher Michelle Locko, who at first thought the situation wasn't life threatening and was just some lacerations, sent units from the Renton Fire Department to their house, but she found out from Leah and the sounds on the phone that she wasn't breathing and wasn't bleeding out. Locko sent a King County Medic One ambulance unit which specializes in ALS (Advanced Life Support) as well. "The possibility that she would die in front of her grandmother and grandfather went through my mind." Locko stated. As Locko tried to give out some medical tips to Leah in order to help Kenrda, she forwarded it to Stuart. But they thought that she wasn't going to make it. The ambulance with EMT Mark Brenn and his partner arrived first, along with the fire department. When they checked Kendra out, they found her clinically dead (no pulse, rhythm or heartbeat) and they took over care from her grandparents. Medic One paramedics Mel McClure and Tom Gudmestad arrived a few minutes after and immediately commenced advanced life-support. They started squeezing fluids in Kendra to replish the massive blood loss. Gudmestad states, "The chance of surviving from traumatic cardiac arrest is pretty grim. It's very hard to work a dead 5-year-old girl. Very hard. Everyone's emotional pitch was tuned up to the higher degree. Everybody wants to save this little girl. And all the time, there's a voice in the back of your head saying go, go go." They finally got a pulse after 10 minutes. They rushed Kendra to a Landing Zone at a nearby school, where a helicopter would land to transport her. McClure and the others heard on the radio that she flatlined in the helicopter and they started CPR. McClure thought they lost the girl, despite how far they got to resuscitate her. But the flight nurses managed to restart her heart. Kendra was then flown to Harborview Medical Center under the care of trauma surgeon Dr. Timothy Pullman. He and the others peformed emergency surgery on the girl where they discovered and managed to remove a huge shard of glass that was down in her heart. The surgeons stood in amazement. "We were very surprised, I never encountered a piece of glass sticking out of the heart." Dr. Pullman stated. Kendra's parents, Allen and Kathy Eades, got the call and arrived at the hospital. After the surgery, Dr. Pullman said she had a 25 percent change of living. Kendra was transferred to Children's Health and Medical Center where she placed in a drug-induced coma to give her a best chance to hear. Her parents stood by her side as long as possible. As days went by, her condition began to deteriorate. A medical team, including a cardiologist, discovered the wound in her heart wasn't healing properly. She needed a emergency surgery to repair it, despite chances that it might be too weak to survive. She underwent four hours of delegate open-heart surgery. Amazingly, she came out of her coma and miraculously survived. Trivia The animated clips of the ambulance followed by a fire truck and of the fire truck driving on a flat road seen when the show returns from a commercial break were taken from this segment. Category:1991 Category:Washington Category:Glass Category:Bleeding